“It’s the year 2015. The compact device in my hand delivers me the world, one news story at a time. I flip through my favorite papers and magazines, the images as crisp as in print, without a maddening wait for each page to load.

“Even better, the device knows who I am, what I like, and what I have already read. So while I get all the news and comment, I also see stories tailored for my interests. I zip through a health story in The Wall Street Journal and a piece about Iraq from Egypt’s Al Gomhuria, translated automatically from Arabic to English. I tap my finger on the screen, telling the computer brains underneath it got this suggestion right.

“Some of these stories are part of a monthly subscription package. Some, where the free preview sucks me in, cost a few pennies billed to my account. Others are available at no charge, paid for by advertising. But these ads are not static pitches for products I’d never use. Like the news I am reading, the ads are tailored just for me. Advertisers are willing to shell out a lot of money for this targeting.”

The relevance problem with newspapers started with radio, TV and 24-hour cable news (not the internet), even if Craigslist, eBay and Google added to the pain by breaking down their primary business model. But all the whining that search engines (like Google) and news aggregation services (like Digg) are killing the news business neglects the fact that the Google News headline service sends news publishers a billion clicks a month. It’s time for publishers to turn that enormous audience into a new business model.

“The advertisement, for WPMI-TV in Alabama, showed the station’s anchors, Greg Peterson and Kym Thurman, with their top weatherman Derek Beasley, alongside the latest headline and the words ‘Right now on Twitter’.

“Unfortunately for the station, at one stage the top headline on Twitter read ‘Three accused of gang rape in Monroeville,’ and the misleading juxtaposition was caught on camera by a passing motorist as he drove through Mobile, Alabama.”